


Literacy lesson

by My_Beating_Hart



Series: A Mahariel's Travels [7]
Category: Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: (I think?), (only like once), Fluff, Gen, Illiteracy, M/M, Sex poetry, Swearing, Teaching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-10
Updated: 2014-11-10
Packaged: 2018-02-24 21:04:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2596382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/My_Beating_Hart/pseuds/My_Beating_Hart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Now, now. If Alistair wishes to play teacher, we should not crush his dreams so brutally.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Literacy lesson

The ranger really should have ensured his eyes left the poster quicker.

“Hey, what does that say?” Leliana asked, causing the rest of the group to pause on their way through Denerim and look at the battered scrap of paper pinned to the wall. Theron’s eyes widened, and he quickly stepped away so the others could get a better look at the paper. So they couldn’t see his blank, uncomprehending look at the rows of squiggles. He idly scuffed the ground, pretending to be more interested in the chatter from the marketplace behind them.

“Friends of the Grey Wardens, huh?” Alistair mused, glancing around at the small group. “Good to know that not everyone in Ferelden wants to have our heads.”

Theron nodded in quiet agreement, feeling mildly confused as Leliana started to ask Alistair about griffons, whatever they were, and whether the Grey Wardens had really ridden them. But, it kept them distracted until they all got back to the tavern in the evening.

The Dalish elf looked around at the chattering group as they waited for their food to be served, wondering who would be best to ask. Probably not Alistair, because he’d kick up some kind of fuss about it. Morrigan would be a slightly safer choice (assuming she could as well), but she would probably insult him before explaining. Sten was all but hopeless, so that left Zevran, who was thankfully seated between him and Leliana.

During the meal, Theron casually nudged the Antivan in the side.

“You know that poster everyone was looking at earlier?”

Zevran raised one blond eyebrow in curiosity, looking up from his meal, and nodded. Theron glanced across at Alistair, who was too busy trying to ignore Dudain’s pleading whines for scraps as he talked with Sten about his time in the cage in Lothering.

“Well…” The Dalish elf hesitated, suddenly not wanting to admit it to even the other elf he shared his tent with. “What did it say?”

Zevran blinked in surprise, but quickly finished his mouthful of food.

“Can I ask an obvious question first?”

“No.”

“How disappointing. Well, it said, ‘Don't believe the lies! Friends of the Grey Wardens assemble. The hidden pearl holds the key to resistance. The griffons will rise again.’” Zevran explained, narrowing his eyes as he tried to recall just what it had said. Theron nodded, reassured, and picked up his fork. He was about to go back to his meal when a certain redhead leaned forwards around Zevran to look at him, a shocked expression on her face.

“Theron, you can’t read?” Leliana asked loudly. The ranger’s fork clattered when it hit the table.

 

Theron was still mildly annoyed, to say the least, several weeks later. He was happy that it’d taken Alistair and Leliana so long to find out as they had, because he hadn’t really expected them to react like _this_. He was startled from the remains of his late meal when Alistair sat down next to him uninvited, the log that served as a makeshift bench trembling slightly under his weight.

The Dalish elf reluctantly tore his gaze away from Zevran, who was sitting down on his other side with his back resting against the log, leaning his head against his thigh. The black-haired man looked over at Alistair from the corner of his eye, and took in the sight of the books he’d just gotten from his tent.

“Oh, not this again.” Theron sighed, resignedly putting down his bowl of half-eaten stew.

“Now, now. If Alistair wishes to play teacher, we should not crush his dreams so brutally.” Zevran chided, smirking in the firelight.

“Ha ha.” Alistair replied, not looking up from the books as if he was having difficulty choosing which one to use for the evening’s lesson. It was late, everyone else having finished their meals and drifted off to relax elsewhere before turning in for the night.

Theron noticed Morrigan getting to her feet from where she had been sat on one of the other benches nearby, turning her head away from the firelight, but he caught the smirk she was trying to hide. A smirk at his expense, no doubt. Or perhaps it was at the idea of Alistair actually teaching.

“Save me.” The black-haired elf hissed beseechingly to his lover, but Zevran chuckled.

“No. If there is one thing I have learned, it is that if you accept your lessons and do not resist them, they will be over that much quicker.” The Antivan replied, patting his lover’s knee reassuringly.

“Don’t think I can’t hear you two.” Alistair informed them casually, not looking up from the book he was flicking through.

Zevran, still with that smirk on his lips, sat up, perching on the end of the log so he was almost sitting on Theron’s lap, lips brushing against the ranger’s ear.

“I will make the rest of tonight more pleasant for you, I promise.” He whispered, in the way they both knew sent a chill through the Dalish elf. With that, he got up from the log and sauntered away to their shared tent, humming rather tunefully and leaving Theron to his doom without even looking back. The heartless bastard.

“So, where were we?” Alistair questioned cheerfully, now having found the right place in the book. Very reluctantly, Theron looked over, and then took the book from the ex-Templar. He looked down at the pages, stained from weeks of travel, and the black markings on them.

He’d known Alistair and Leliana would have been the most shocked at the fact their leader couldn’t read, but curse the bard for suggesting they get some books to rectify that. Tonight, it was Alistair’s turn to teach him instead of doing the cooking, something the rest of the camp seemed to appreciate even if Theron didn’t. Morrigan had actually muttered something about necessary sacrifices the other day.

Theron resisted the urge to pitch the book into the fire, knowing that would mean Alistair would have little choice but to move onto the next book, with smaller print and longer words. He should have been more discreet about staring at that poster, or should have asked Zevran when they weren’t sitting right next to either of the most compassionate members of the party.

Being raised in a Dalish camp far from most _shemlen_ villages, with no clue that one day he would be forced to leave his childhood home behind entirely, Theron had obviously not been taught everything he needed to interact with the outside world. He had been taught to speak the common tongue, given how there was so little of the Elven language left to them, and a need to still trade with the _shemlen_ from time to time for supplies they could not find within the forest or get from other clans. He’d never been taught to read it, though. Numbers, he had a good grasp of, purely so jaded merchants wouldn’t try to cheat him out of his gold during a bartering session.

Theron shot his fellow Grey Warden a half-annoyed, half-pleading look, but Alistair merely nodded to the open book in his lap.

“Go on, read what you can.” He instructed gently.

The elf let out a sigh, and looked back down at the pages, resting his finger halfway down one, just under a line of marks. Teaching him the letters had been a painfully slow process, one that Leliana had managed better than Alistair, but he was improving, able to recognise a lot of the shorter words and have increasingly less prompting for the longer ones.

“‘In the far north, where the hills w… Wan-der the plains and the ear-th is… the sun-’” Theron began haltingly, but he stopped when he noticed Alistair shaking his head slightly. “What?” He asked, frowning.

“It’s pronounced ‘ _urth_ ’, not ‘ear-th’.” Alistair explained, leaning over to check the sentence. “And don’t ignore the difficult words.” He added, frowning back. “It’s supposed to go ‘and the earth is eternally baked beneath the uncaring sun’.” He read slowly, enunciating the longer words.

“You told me to read what I can.” Theron huffed like a petulant child, but his lips moved as he tried out the unfamiliar words.

“E-ter-nally. Bay-ked. Un-care-ing.” He mumbled softly to himself as he repeated the other Grey Warden’s pronunciations, and Alistair nodded in encouragement.

“Want to try it again from the beginning?”

“‘In the far north, where the hills w-wander the plains and the _urth_ is eter-nally baked be-neath the unc-caring sun’.” Theron repeated, frowning in concentration and tilting the book down slightly so he could see the words better in the flickering firelight. Alistair smiled, knowing that the Dalish elf was applying himself properly at last. He always hated the idea of lessons, like anyone reluctant to learn, but once he focused himself Theron learned quickly.

“‘The lands which the _shemlen_ call… And-er-fels, a clan of our people lived, st… Strug… Strugg-ling to survive the Blight.’” The elf continued, finger running slowly along the page to track his progress. The sentence finished, he glanced up at Alistair. “This is a book about the Dalish.” He mused aloud, looking down at the words thoughtfully. “I think I like it.”

Alistair nodded, knowing how difficult it had been to track a copy down.

“I didn’t want to make this even more tortuous for you.” He replied with a quick grin, before he made a gesture to encourage Theron to keep going.

“‘I-loren was their keeper. A hunter in his younger days, craft… Crafty as any wolf, he led his people all-ways just ahead of the dark-spawn who chase-d them. But the old hun-ter knew that even halla can-not run f-forever. They must turn and fight, or be run down.’” Theron read, nodding in agreement with the last sentence before he carried on, unprompted this time.

“‘At the foot of the… The Med… The Mer… Alistair, what does that say?” He asked, frowning at the new word and holding the book out so the ex-Templar could see.

“Ah. It’s ‘Merdaine’. I think it’s a place in Anderfels somewhere, maybe a mountain.” Alistair explained, watching the elf mouth the word to himself as he settled the book back in his lap.

“‘At the foot of the… Mer-dane, the darkspawn corn-ered Iloren’s clan. That night, the moon was str-strangled by clouds, the earth con… Con…’”

“Concealed.” Alistair supplied, stretching as he sat there on the bench.

“‘Concealed by a dread mist that rose out of no-where, so that the _elvhen_ could not tell up from down. In the con-fu-sion, the darkspawn a-ttacked. But Iloren had pre… Prepa… Prepared for them. All around the camp, the hunters had strewn dry grass, brush and brambles. When the sound of rusting foot-falls began, Iloren-’”

“ _Rusting_ footfalls? Are you sure you read that right?”

Theron blinked, his finger pausing, and looked back at the problematic word, hoping that the erratic firelight wouldn’t show the slight blush of embarrassment on his cheeks.

“Rustling.” He corrected, frowning at the word, that overlooked letter.

“Good, carry on.”

“‘Iloren and the other _hahren_ call-ed upon the old mah-jik-’”

“Not so abrupt. It’s ‘magic’.”

Theron looked up when Alistair interrupted him again so soon, but nodded in understanding.

“‘They struck out with l-light-ning, and though the… Bolts? Missed the darkspawn, they hit their tar-get all the same. The sea of kind-ling lit, and not one of the dark cree-tures made it through the fire to reach Iloren’s clan.’”

Theron blinked when he realised that was the end of the tale, momentarily at a loss. Then he decisively shut the book and handed it back to Alistair as if it would bite if he held it any longer.

“There, I’m done.” He said quickly, for a second reminding his fellow Warden of his own childhood spent yearning to be out of lessons.

“You did rather well. You really are getting better at reading.” Alistair nodded, gathering the small stack of books up. There was no real need to move onto the next book already. That could wait for tomorrow, or whenever Leliana got the chance. Besides, Theron seemed to have enjoyed reading the book, perhaps because it was about something that truly interested him.

Alistair remembered the first attempt he’d made at teaching Theron to read aloud, with an anthology of Dwarven poetry. He’d gotten halfway through the children’s poem about fried mush and nug and thrown the book in the fire, accusing it (and, by extent, Alistair) of being patronising. That had almost killed off the entire ‘Teach Theron to read’ plan before it had truly started.

“I’ll take the first watch with Sten.” Alistair added, watching Theron start to walk back to his tent before he did the same, to go put the books away where Dudain hopefully wouldn’t be able to chew them to shreds.

“Okay.” The elf called back over his shoulder, rubbing tiredly at his eyes as he ducked through the flaps of his and Zevran’s tent, turning automatically to tie them firmly shut before he looked over at the Antivan who was no doubt reclining on the bed as usual.

"You were good tonight." Zevran praised from where he was nestled in the furs, already in his smallclothes for the night. Theron tried not to flush at the compliment, looking down as he began to undo the straps of his armour.

"I still hate it." The ranger replied, hoping the lie wasn't obvious. The other elf got to his feet, padding over to help him out of his armour, standing close.

"The amount of times you've said that, I wonder if you've managed to convince yourself that it is the truth." Zevran commented, slipping his fingers under the widening gaps in the Dalish elf's armour, his fingers brushing against warm skin. "I can tell when someone is lying badly, you know. They will make a scholar of you yet." He added, looking at Theron with a flicker of amusement in his golden-brown eyes.

They were quiet for a moment, focused on undoing the various buckles and straps until Theron peeled the tough leather away from his skin, shrugging out of it like a cocoon that was no longer needed.

"I could read to you, if you wanted?" The former Crow suggested as he ran his hands down the other elf's newly exposed skin, smirking when he caught the pained look.

"No thanks. Even if it is that sex poetry." Theron sighed, stepping out of his armour and pulling his boots off, soon followed by his gloves.

"How sad." Zevran pouted, not protesting when he was gently taken by the wrist and lead over to the bedroll.

"My heart aches for you." The Dalish elf replied dryly, settling down on his side with a tired sigh.

"I might recite it anyway." Zevran suggested as he stretched out behind the ranger, curling up against him and wrapping his arms round his midsection to keep him close, ignoring the half-hearted protests. He lifted his head up until his lips were brushing against the shell of Theron's ear.

"The symphony I see in thee / it whispers songs to me." The Antivan began in a low whisper, and Theron tilted his head at the ticklish feeling of his breath ghosting across his ear, warm and feathery, but he didn't pull away.

"Songs of hot breath upon my neck / songs of soft grunts by my head / songs of hands on muscled back / songs of thee come to my bed."

"I can't believe that poetry is supposed to seduce people." Theron mumbled dismissively, trying to ignore the way Zevran's whispers had sent chills through him all the same, the way the words had sparked memories of their own, similar acts. To admit that the damn thing had affected him would be embarrassing, because Zevran would find it more amusing than his constant adamant protests that he hated reading.

"Does that mean it has worked?" Zevran replied hopefully, running his hands up and down the other elf's bare front, skimming his fingers along taut muscles.

"I think I prefer your massages." The black-haired man replied evasively, and the Antivan grinned in knowing victory.

"We both do, _mi amor_."

**Author's Note:**

> I think the next piece to be put up will be a multi-chaptered one. I've written the first one, but there's still one or two more to go. Sadly, I'll have to stop updating for now til after this essay's been handed in, on the 17th. So, there won't be anything new for at least a week, I'm afraid.


End file.
